


She's Not There

by Shusu (Sameshima_Shuzumi)



Category: FLCL
Genre: F/F, Masturbation, Outdoor Sex, Sexual Content, Spiritual, Wordcount: 1.000-3.000, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000, prose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-20
Updated: 2011-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-27 15:29:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/297331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sameshima_Shuzumi/pseuds/Shusu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one could tell her anything about Haruko. She was going to find out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	She's Not There

**Author's Note:**

  * For [windychimes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/windychimes/gifts).



> Title from a song. The non-con tag is only just in case of triggering for dubious consent. Likewise the spirituality tag is for some of the language and imagery, not anything in-depth. There are a few other social triggers too. For the most part this is a docile little fic, just wanted to warn readers away if it's not their bag. 
> 
> ETA: I try, over and over, to write some comment of thanks to everyone, but some pit in my stomach says it's going to be blather about me and not this tale, which doesn't seem fitting. Seem to fit. It's like I have to excise this and simply give it to all of you. Please accept my blanket thanks for taking the time to leave a comment. The love is genuine. So is the cut. 

* * *

The blades of grass were spears on her back. If Mamimi moved, they'd surely dig in deeper, into her back, her legs. Surely they'd sever her neck, little paper-cuts of green. But if she didn't move, they were a pillow. Soft. Soft. Tiny fingernails that dug.

The sky was blue.

Mamimi had been listening to someone clatter down the riverbank for ages, now. She thought she knew who it was. She couldn't move her head to see, so she couldn't confirm it. People were seldom who she guessed they were.

A shadow loomed over the sky. That woman: Haruhara Haruko.

"He's not here, you know."

Everything that woman said was said with a sneer. Mamimi felt her shadow climb on top of her. "So what. I'm waiting here."

Haruko was always running after Naota. Mamimi knew she could wait. By the river. The river was best.

Mamimi moved her arm, and brought the cigarette to her lips. Cut cut cut cut, every blade of grass swishing under her sleeve. Maybe she was a martyr now.

Boots and crushed grass and a loud sneer. Everything about Haruko was loud. Mamimi flicked her eyes over, followed the line of her thighs up into her skirt, into darkness. The sun was too bright to see anything. For some reason, Mamimi didn't think anything was there, like a black hole.

Her eyes flicked. Ash.

"Hah," said the woman.

If Mamami moved her head, she'd see her look up at the sky.

*

Mamimi squatted by the curb. Arms propped out, breasts against her knees. People passed by on the busy road. They stared, and whispered. Mamimi ignored them. Eventually they would pass her by.

Once, someone had stopped and rescued her.

She heard the scooter coming from three blocks away, sputtering and whining, knocking into things and people with a big cloud of dust.

It stopped in front of her. Haruko stared, but it was a wide-eyed clueless stare, as though she didn't expect Mamimi to be there, much less exist. She wasn't from around here, after all. The scooter didn't seem to know they were stopped; it growled like a wild creature. Haruko leaned towards Mamimi. The whole scooter leaned. The groceries behind her shifted.

Suddenly Mamimi was angry. Why did she have to keep looking? She was always sniffing around Naota, trying to crack him open like an egg, and now she was searching her like she expected to find something.

Mamimi jerked herself to her feet. Like a wary animal, Haruko mirrored her movement, straightening back up. She didn't recoil, though. She shifted her center of gravity like it was nothing. On the outside, all she seemed like was flailing arms and legs, and clouds of smoke, but Mamimi sensed all that burnt rubber had metal underneath. Like tire rims washed up on the river.

And she was still staring at Mamimi.

Mamimi spit at her feet. Haruko just blinked. Housecats would have run away. Felines in the wild didn't have to, and the feeling was rising inside Mamimi that the look on Haruko's face was pity.

But Mamimi saw it: the side of a sneer.

The scooter pulled away. A cloud of dust and noise. Disgusting.

*

Under the bridge was dry and cool. It was raining everywhere else. Mamimi could rest here and remain untouched.

The ground was hard, though. Vehicles overhead were like passing earthquakes, banging carelessly against the metal joints. Mamimi pressed her lips together. It wasn't much of a view. On top, the roadway looked nice and smooth. Underneath was a map of cracks and decay and jagged edges where the seams showed.

Mamimi scrubbed at her thighs. She thought of being dry, and warm, and blanketed. Scents filled her head. Here she could pretend that everyone else had gone away. Left her alone to _be_ , to exist. Shouldn't skip school. Shouldn't smoke. Shouldn't touch there, there around her private place. If this was her private place, who were they to tell her? She hated that.

Warmth bled up through her chest, into her head. Her fingers drew a circle over her panties.

Rain. There had been a day like this. Rain meant there was no game on the field.

A boot crunched on sand.

Haruko's cat-eyes peered under the lip where the bridge met the embankment.

The warmness exploded, and not in a good way.

"What are you doing here!"

"Nothing. What are you doing?"

"What does it matter!" Mamimi remembered to yank her hand from her skirts. "Go away!"

"It's public property."

"Why are you even here?!"

"Rain," said Haruko. "No game today."

Mamimi stomped up the hill. "You shouldn't–!" She didn't know. She just didn't know why this woman rankled her so. She was just a noisy being who didn't belong here; Mamimi shouldn't have trouble ignoring her. Her hand shot out and hit Haruko on the chest.

Even on uneven ground, Haruko barely moved. Mamimi's hand was dirty.

Mamimi wiped her skin on Haruko's breast. The woman didn't make a sound. Could she even tell the difference? She wasn't moving; she wasn't going away. Glaring at that blank face, Mamimi lunged and bit the other breast.

The scent of a damp, starched uniform filled her head.

"Oh, so it's like that, huh?" said Haruko, but she was giving ground, she was backing up under the bridge, between the girders.

Mamimi had heard of people who liked it rough. Maybe Haruko was like that. Mamimi bit and tugged, the buttons starting the strain, and her damp fingers dug into soft flesh. It was different from touching herself. It was. Maybe it was like. Power, it was like power to scoop and suck until she found a nipple under all that cloth.

Haruko was breathing fast, though not raggedly. Her breaths echoed in the dark space between rusted beams.

When Mamimi stole a glance at her, she was looking up. The column of her throat pointed to a sky she couldn't see. Her back was to the wall.

The sneer wasn't there.

Mamimi spit her out. She dropped a few steps back down the hill. Wiped her lips on her sleeve.

"Go away," Mamimi said.

Haruko dusted herself off, straightened her buttons, and ducked under the girder. Immediately the rain erased the dampness on her chest.

Mamimi wondered if she felt warm.

*

The sky was yellow today. Clouds rushed downstream, following the river. Mamimi took a drag of her cigarette. The ember at the tip seemed to glower at her, the single pupil of a blinking eye.

The light of an airplane blinked back, far above the clouds. It left a trail of smoke, too.

Mamimi didn't want to be an animal. Flesh was too soft for all the thoughts welling up inside. Even plain Naota had things popping out of his head all the time. The question was whether it was possible to be a god. To be a god of stray creatures. A god of the abandoned trash, the weeds, the currents of the lost.

Now there was Haruko. She had come out of the sky, but Mamimi didn't think she was a god. A goddess was supposed to flow out of the river. A god of fire was supposed to be fire. A god of metal was supposed to be metal. Clean. Haruko changed all the time, hard, soft, all the time unclean. Maybe she was a trickster god. Even then, Mamimi wouldn't believe in her.

Maybe Haruko only seemed like a god because she could see things. She watched, _all the time_ , even when she pretended not to watch. But surely a god would know what they were looking at. Whatever they saw was a part of them, wasn't that right? Haruko didn't seem to be a part of anything.

Mamimi got up to walk along the shallows. It was night-time, and the birds were gathering along the banks. The scooter had passed her that morning. Mamimi could still hear the click of the kick-stand, like an old lighter coming on.

"He's not coming, you know."

Mamimi considered wading into the river, lifting her skirts among the willows.

Not yet.

Smoke filled her lungs. _Gods, accept this offering. Consecrate me in your glory. Reveal your everlasting truth._

*

"You're lying."

One could cover flesh in starched cloth, and it would still be flesh. Naota was in school. Haruko wasn't watching him. What she was doing was pressing her knee under Mamimi's skirts.

That sneer grew on her face like a weed. "What if I'm not?"

They were on the embankment, within view of the road, but everyone was in school or at work. The grass was soft here, bent down by the relentless rains. It was so steep they were almost standing up.

Mamimi was undoing Haruko's clothes. It was the only way to know for sure. People never looked underneath. It was how Mamimi had gotten away with everything for so long. Lots of people pretended to be something they weren't, but Haruko flaunted it, shoved it out there, and Mamimi had to know what wasn't visible to the naked eye.

Wriggling around, Haruko skipped her breasts and went right for her shoulder. Oh, stupid. This woman. She was blanketing Mamimi, a warm blanket of writhing energy, and every move showed her she'd been watching Mamimi all this time. "Ngh. Fngh." Mamimi shook her head. Why would Haruko pay attention to her? She didn't have anything she wanted. That was all that mattered to her, even Mamimi could see that. Haruko should have just passed her by.

Once, someone had stopped and rescued her from herself. It hadn't been enough. It could never be enough.

"Enough... Quit. Stop!" Mamimi was going to overflow.

Haruko let her go. But she moved lower, her smile edged.

Why were her knees apart? Mamimi could feel the soft grass as her panties slid up her thighs, and she couldn't move. Maybe that was part of Haruko's powers too.

"If he's not coming, you have to go get him," Haruko said, muffled, sucking on her secret place. "Go," she said, tongue clever and searching, "Get him."

Mamimi cried out. "What if he doesn't come!"

Birds took off from the rushes.

"Nyagh." Haruko rose from her crouch. She licked her own wrist, like a cat. The metal chain there ticked against her teeth. Her breasts hung out of her clothes like obscene fruit.

Trembling, Mamimi slid her hands through the strange cloth. Haruko's belly was soft and warm. Like real flesh.

"Do they all come to you," Mamimi said. "Are you like the mouth of the river?" She slid her fingers downward, and it was like a live flame, pulsing and unpredictable and burning everything it touched. Like a real woman with real breath. Mamimi crooked her finger and watched her stutter in the wind.

"Of course he's going to come," Haruko said through her teeth. She began to rub her thigh between Mamimi's legs, bunching up the school uniform skirt, and though the friction threw sparks in her eyes, Mamimi knew.

Real flint only needed one strike.

"Of course he is," repeated Haruko with a sneer.

_Lying, lying, lying._

Haruko was purring, mumbling, twisting her hips around Mamimi's fingers. They were both undulating out of sync, kicking at the air as they tried to capture what couldn't be caught. Mamimi's head was getting so light. So light. Yet it was so clear, like the sky was whispering in her ear, that Mamimi knew something that this woman didn't. Maybe she couldn't do anything with the knowledge, but it was real, raw power, even as Haruko lit her up in places she hadn't noticed were dark.

So light, she could float away.

"Aha," said Haruko afterwards. "Ahahaha."

Mamimi pursed her lips.

*

She took off her shoes.

The water was murky. Cold. Mamimi squatted in the current, letting it push her skirts around her so no one would see, letting it wash her clean.

So that woman was real, after all.

Mamimi stood up. She waded to shore. Water gathered around her ankles, and dripped down her legs. It tingled.

Around her, the birds dipped their beaks, the insects swarmed, the grasses rustled with strays following the river's course.

They all knew the same secret, and they all told the same lie. The sky was a thick blanket.

Mamimi kept it to herself.


End file.
